Receiving and Knowing the Holy Ghost

In teaching youth each Sunday I get to observe them.  I've spent quite a bit of time instructing young men over the last seven years.  The boys I help teach right now are a bit hard to keep focused on the Spirit.  When I talk to them about knowing the Holy Ghost, and what the Holy Ghost produces inside us, I get the sense that they don't know the Spirit as well as they could.  They're not used to recognizing the Holy Ghost, and in a sense seem to be unaware of the very real presence that is there when we're correctly testifying of Christ and the Gospel.

It's understandable; I didn't have a full sense of what the Holy Ghost was like when I was young.  It took time to develop that sense.

There's also something else.  In the Missionary Training Center our teachers taught us of the importance of helping others to recognize and identify the Holy Ghost as we taught them.  This made sense to me in a basic way, but I struggled a bit initially.  I didn't feel like I was able to do it.  I went on with my time there, and one day, in the middle of a class, I thought to myself, "Wow; the Spirit is really strong here right now."  Then, I suddenly realized that I had done it.  I had recognized the influence of the Spirit.  What's more, I had done so many times in the past, but from that point on I learned to be more sensitive to the feelings that the Holy Ghost produces in us.

It's really more than just simple feelings, though we certainly do feel and experience the things described in Galatians 5:22.

My hope for the young men that I teach is that they also gain a greater sensitivity to the Spirit.

While in Afghanistan I had several discussions about science and religion with another officer.  I rather enjoyed the discussions, and I hoped in a way that one day he would be interested in seeking a testimony of the restored Gospel.  In one discussion he brought up a scientific study he'd heard of that involved people being attached to electrodes (around the brain) and feeling "the Spirit of God", or the same feelings that God produces in us, after being stimulated electrically.  He took it as proof that our feelings are not, in fact, from God.  I saw it quite in the opposite way; when I've felt the Holy Ghost many times in the past, I'm quite certain I didn't have electrodes hooked up to my brain, so the only other place the feelings could come from is God.

One of my favorite life experiences is to listen to the simple words of an Apostle during General Conference and feeling a strong witness from the Holy Ghost.  There's no inspiring music at that moment, no external influence of any kind, and of course no brain-wired electrodes that could possibly provide me a counterfeit feeling like that of the Holy Ghost.  The pure and beautiful truth that they speak, inviting the Holy Ghost to testify to us, is the only thing that it could possibly be.

Over the last few years, with some particular struggles, I've grown weaker at times.  When we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, we're instructed with a specific verb: "receive".  We have to act in order to stay close to the presence of the Spirit of God.  Throughout our lives, we can draw closer to God or let ourselves slip farther away, and it's vital that we make daily efforts to move closer.

Last thoughts for now:
I hope to grow closer to the Spirit of God again and to be strong in service to my Heavenly Father and His children.  I hope to assist the young men I help teach to truly know the Holy Ghost, whose power and influence they so definitely need right now and will need in the future.